Scott Akin: It’s All About Relationships

Scott Akin is the owner of Elevator Sill Solutions by Archi-Tread, a manufacturer and installer of elevator cab and hoistway sills. Scott has been in the elevator industry over 30 years, starting at the bottom and working his way up in manufacturing. Scott first worked for a family-owned elevator manufacturing business, and after selling, he started his own company. With the intent to reinvent how this industry approaches the challenges with elevator sills both new and existing. Scott fully understands the value of creating and maintaining relationships and is a firm believer in being honest even though it may not be what the customer wants to hear.

Show notes:
0:00:00 Introduction
0:01:41 Scott Akin welcome and background
0:02:02 How Scott got started in the elevator industry through his wife’s family business
0:09:02 Scott’s work on Statue of Liberty elevator modernization projects
0:11:05 Impact of family business consultant on Scott’s approach
0:13:15 Challenges of multi-generational family businesses
0:16:38 Importance of communication and relationships in business
0:20:01 Scott’s experience transitioning to owning his own business
0:22:53 Origins of the Archi-Tread sill overlay system concept
0:27:03 Benefits of the field retrofit approach for sill replacements
0:31:38 Advantages of Scott’s system for labor costs and installation time
0:34:32 Solving unique challenges with the overlay system
0:35:04 Most important lesson learned: building relationships through honesty
0:37:06 Advice for those new to the elevator industry

TRANSCRIPT:
Scott Akin 0:00
The best thing, probably one of your questions here that I believe in is relationships. Period. Amen. You know, everyone says it’s all about price. It’s not about price, no price place some part. But in the big, big picture, it’s all about relationships. And, you know, I have a lot of them. And you know, when the going gets tough, you can lean on your relationships, and you know, and you’d be supported. If it’s about price, somebody’s gonna go somewhere else. Hello,

Matthew Allred 0:34
and welcome to the elevator careers podcast sponsored by the Allred Group. I am your host, Matt Allred. In this podcast, we talked to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before to inspire the next generation of elevator careers. Today, our guest is Scott Aiken, owner of elevator sales solutions by Archi-Tread, a manufacturer and installer of elevator cab and hoistway sills, Scott has been in the elevator industry over 30 years starting at the bottom and working his way up in manufacturing. Scott first worked for a family owned elevator manufacturing business. And after selling he started his own company with the intent to reinvent how this industry approaches the challenges with elevator sills both new and existing. Scott fully understands the value of creating and maintaining relationships. And as a firm believer in being honest, even though it may not be what the customer wants to hear. Scott, welcome to the show.

Scott Akin 1:41
Thank you. Glad to be here.

Matthew Allred 1:43
Thank you. I’m excited to be able to talk to you. It was great to meet you in Reno at the last NAC conference. And I’m excited to be able to talk a little bit more about your career, your business. And I always like to start out with just finding out how did you get started in the elevator industry in the first place?

Scott Akin 2:02
Actually, through my wife her family started in elevator company manufacturing company. So actually was her grandfather. Back in 1939. I believe it

Matthew Allred 2:16
was Wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So

Scott Akin 2:18
there’s three generations of manufacturing going on. Elevator manufacturing,

Matthew Allred 2:25
is still in business or? Yeah,

Scott Akin 2:29
yes, we sold that company in 2013. That was after 79 years. Yeah. But that’s kind of where I went to school. During the day, I started going to college, when I was 25, maybe. And started working there at nights. Literally sweeping the floor. That was why this

Matthew Allred 2:56
was after you got married or about that time when you’re dating know

Scott Akin 2:59
when we first started dating. Okay. So by trade, I’m a baker. Nice. Okay. Yeah. Right. So I spent all through high school and years after high school and baking, and kind of got burnt out on that. So it was time for a new career. I didn’t expect it to be elevators. But it was a night it was a job at night. And I fell in love with the manufacturing. Absolutely.

Matthew Allred 3:27
What was it that that you fell in love with specifically was it just technical complexity, the, the machinery,

Scott Akin 3:36
the machinery, you know, and I remember like it was yesterday, you know, they call it a shear but to piece of equipment that takes metal and just cuts it. And I was hooked from that day on, you know, so that’s my passion is manufacturing. It really is. Phenomenal. And then add to that the uniqueness of elevators. And that’s all it took for me.

Matthew Allred 4:04
So, I mean, it sounds like you kind of caught the bug early on what how long from me, sweeping floors, you know, to to actually Canton that by what was the kind of the timeframe there. So, I

Scott Akin 4:19
started in 91. And I think probably by 93. Yeah, two years of schooling. And after that. I said that’s enough and started full time during the day in the shops,

Matthew Allred 4:36
right. So once you started in the shop, what what was it? I mean, you obviously run this year or something like that, what was your first line of duty?

Scott Akin 4:44
So my first line of duty for actually the first few years was a helper. Like I said, sweeping floors and your work on the back of the machine, just catching material and whatever, you know, and The typical progression for any machine shop is your helper. And then one day, you get a chance to go on the front side of the machine and, you know, maybe cut 1000 pieces. And that’s really what happens, you know, and then you get trust from the supervisor that he can actually run this machine and you grow from there. And, and then you just keep graduating from a shear to a press break to punch machine, you know, and you know, I, at least I have some coordination and some brain brainpower, you know, so it was able to, in order to Excel but able to, you know, work the machines, and that was recognized. So,

Matthew Allred 5:44
and it sounds like you had that desire, right? You didn’t, you didn’t want to just keep catching parts for the rest of your life. You you want to grow and learn and learn everything is what it sounds like.

Scott Akin 5:54
Right? Right. You know, and in the baking business, when I left, we were actually more of a manufacturing, we were manufacturing cookies, it wasn’t, you know, the old sweatshop, rolling bread, it was, you know, automated machinery. So scheduling. And so it kind of complemented what I was doing just different machines.

Matthew Allred 6:16
Absolutely Yeah, just different product, right, you’re right, on cookies, you’re not going to eat your, your elevator parts, but, you know, probably a lot of the same processes. Yeah,

Scott Akin 6:27
yeah. And like I said, I fell in love with it. And then one of the guys that was kind of running production, we actually brought him down from from Boston, because we had facilities in Boston, Washington, and jersey was the main manufacturing, we brought him down, he was down for a little bit, and then he moved on. So that kind of opened up the opportunity for production management. And, you know, now overseeing the shops. And from there, just, you know, was limitless, and then out in the field, getting the opportunity to go out in the field, you know, we did a lot of installations in the field.

Matthew Allred 7:11
So I was gonna ask you so so you were manufacturing, I’m assuming cabs, or were you doing kind of

Scott Akin 7:18
all everything you see everything you see when you walk in an elevator. So you walk through a set of doors, two sets of doors, the frame, the entrance frame, and then the box, the box you write in. Now, we don’t do the platform, you know, we didn’t get involved with any of that. And, you know, we grew substantially when my father in law took over the company, bought it from his father in law. We grew substantially from that point on, and really gained a reputation for high end. And you know, it was neat, because we did a lot of high end projects, which is fun, you know, challenging

Matthew Allred 8:02
was probably a lot of custom type of work. I’m assuming that that you were, I mean, if you’re doing the interior, the cab, probably a lot of decorative. Like say high end, probably fancy hotels and office buildings. And you were it really, really matters. What it looks like. It’s not just you know, right standard issue.

Scott Akin 8:24
Yep. Yeah. I mean, you know, again, we did statue liberty, which was really neat. You know, one of the marquee, you know, us, we did the UN a lot of stuff in Washington, a lot of buildings in Washington.

Matthew Allred 8:41
Very cool. So the, like, say the interior of that I talked to a guy just a week or two ago that talked about being on the kind of the engineering team of coming up with the Statue of Liberty. You know, probably the, the underpinnings of what you were were building, so

Scott Akin 8:58
very cool. So it was that was that Liberty elevator?

Matthew Allred 9:02
It was how’re elevator. One of the guys that work there. They do some rack and pinion stuff. And anyway, he’s specs out. Got off to get on to get him on the show. And we can talk more about it but small world? Yeah.

Scott Akin 9:15
Well, ironically, we there was two generations that did the Statue of Liberty. So my father in law and company Liberty elevator. Okay, they’re right there. We did it. The first go around. I think it was 92. Okay, and then the next generation stepped in. And we did it again in 2010 or something like that.

Matthew Allred 9:43
Yeah, I don’t know which generation he was a part of, to ask that question.

Scott Akin 9:51
All good, though. Yeah,

Matthew Allred 9:52
yeah. So who were some of your biggest mentors in those early days sound like your father in law? Maybe it was one of those.

Scott Akin 9:59
Yeah, So he was a strong figure. Right? We brought he had the hindsight to bring in a family business consultant. Yeah. And that was a real eye opener for for me. And actually,

Matthew Allred 10:18
tell me more about that. What what in what way? Was that opening your eyes?

Scott Akin 10:25
Just as approach, Guy was Jim Hutchinson from regeneration partners? I credit all my success to him. They really wow. Yeah, he had tremendous, tremendous impact on me personally, and in on our whole company. He came from a family business, huge family business, and very well off, did not to be, but this was his passion. And gave me a lot of tools taught me a lot of lessons. You know, hit me over the head a lot of times with stuff that you just don’t want to hear, but what

Matthew Allred 11:05
you need sometimes, right? I mean,

Scott Akin 11:07
you need it. Yeah. You know, sometimes you got to be hit over the head. And very helpful. Very, so

Matthew Allred 11:15
you were I assume in operations management by that time. So you were the one that probably got hit in the head the most, because you were probably in charge of kind of how operations were going. Is that correct?

Scott Akin 11:27
That’s true. definitely true. And again, the family dynamic is your thing. We had, I guess, five family members, and then probably two or three, that you weren’t immediate family, but family. And that dynamic is very interesting. And you don’t realize it until someone points it out to you?

Matthew Allred 11:49
Well, I can’t even imagine, I mean, I’ve talked to several people, you know, here on the show that that some of them five generations worth and the family dynamic is gotta be intense at times, you know, just just working face to face and probably getting into arguments, and then you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner? And I mean, can can you have Thanksgiving dinner? Well, you know, with some of these relations, I don’t I don’t know, how did that affect your family? In that show? To your point?

Scott Akin 12:17
You know, it was 24/7? Yeah, no, you’re in the, in the office 12 hours, and you come home. And, you know, my wife was part of the business and, you know, Sunday dinners was pasta, and, you know, financials, and, you know, all that. What the, without going crazy and off on a tangent, but just the, as you said, fifth generation, you know, some people they just naturally become president, they have no idea what it’s like to run a business, right? Or, you know, or they just get compensation, even though they’re not part of the business. And that is, you know, that’s a dynamic that affects a lot of people.

Matthew Allred 12:59
And that’s the risk, right? Because if you got entitled, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, whatever, that that don’t care about the business, but they want their piece of the pie. I mean, I know that can sink your business, if you let it. Right.

Scott Akin 13:15
So to your point, for me, the real eye opener was when I took over or started my company. And, you know, I told this to my father, I said, Whenever I made a decision, I always had the family, best interests in mind. But at that time, my job was to almost like, just process, get things, Move along, move it move and move it. Then came the time I own my own business. And when I had to go spend $100,000 on a piece of equipment, it might took me two weeks to make a decision. Oh, easily where, you know, where I would say it took me two days. Because it was someone else’s money, though. I believed at the time, I was doing the right thing and doing the best thing, right. But until you actually send the money out of your pocket, it’s again, that’s a dynamic. I didn’t I didn’t realize until I was on my own. And

Matthew Allred 14:12
you’re feeling the full weight of it right before it was like, Okay, I’m doing it probably in consultation with these others. But if but if something goes south, we’re all in it together. So I don’t have to bear the full brunt. But yeah, if you’re in business by yourself now. There’s no me no cousin and Uncle Grandpa to to bear that with you.

Scott Akin 14:33
Correct? Correct. You know, but until you step out of that world, you don’t realize that. Yeah,

Matthew Allred 14:40
yeah. And so you’ve been in business in your own business. How long now?

Scott Akin 14:45
So 2014 So that’s where we officially opened up. So what’s that nine years? Almost 10 years now?

Matthew Allred 14:56
Yeah. Yeah, view. What so back to I guess, your early experience you mentioned, you know, those those big decisions and the weight, you know, that’s on you. But what were some of the other? I don’t know, maybe difficult lessons you you learned early on?

Scott Akin 15:17
Good question. Some of them are, you know, again, in our industry, everybody wants everything now. And we got extremely busy, extremely, tremendous backlogs. And, you know, you end up embellishing the truth on a lot of things. And a lot of times, I

Matthew Allred 15:38
promise a little bit more, you’re saying,

Scott Akin 15:41
you know, how many, two weeks? Three? Yeah, two weeks, and it’s actually four weeks, you know, and, you know, see you, and you believe it, you start believing yourself. And that doesn’t work. And that’s one thing, you know, I tell everybody straight up No, you know, embellishing the truth, lying, whatever you want to call, it just doesn’t work. The best thing? That’s probably one of your questions here that I believe in, is relationships. Period, Amen. You know, everyone says, it’s all about price. It’s not about price, price place some part. But in the big, big picture, it’s all about relationships. And, you know, I have a lot of them. And you know, when a girl gets tough, you can lean on your relationships, and you know, and you’d be supported. If it’s about price, somebody’s gonna go somewhere else.

Matthew Allred 16:38
I’m sure. So, so tell me, what is the biggest key factor in preserving, creating, maintaining those relationships, you

Scott Akin 16:49
know, just communication. Use a phone, I mean, our day of email and text messages. I can’t tell you how many people that I’ve, I can tell you a handful that I’ve picked up the phone called, and I get a text message as the phone’s ringing, text me, you know, communication, just I, like we’re doing that people don’t do that anymore. Pick up the phone, none. And I can’t tell you how many people how many people are amazed at how often I pick up the phone. You know, because I want to talk to them, I want to know what’s going on, I want to understand if they have a problem, or if they need help with something, you know, you can’t get that message across in an email or text message all the time. You know, let alone talking about family or talking about, you know, friends or business or how’s things going, you know, we move at such a rapid pace that I found it better to, I don’t say slow down, but just communicate with people. And that in itself builds relationships, and then add to that if you can help them, that’s even better. Well,

Matthew Allred 18:04
what you talked about a minute ago is, you know, being able to trust and, you know, you talked about just being honest, felt like it is what was it that kind of helped you learn that? Was it? Was it something that blew up? You’re like, okay, we’re not going to stretch the, the truth in this, you know, ever

Scott Akin 18:25
know, several things, you know, one was my father in law, had tremendous relationships, and to this day, and, you know, it was not always about money. And once we sold the company, and I was with the new owners for about six months, and in their opinion, it was all about the money. And, you know, that’s, that’s probably one of the main reasons I left is I wasn’t about to throw my reputation because I had an excellent reputation. And just throw it out in the mud, because they were worried about money. And the business was built on relationships, and then you want me to throw it away. And I wasn’t going to do that. And to this day, you know, even if it cost me a few nickels or dimes to help someone out. I’ll do it. Because somewhere down the road. You hope you’ll you’ll get some payback on it. Yeah,

Matthew Allred 19:21
yeah. And that is one thing I find super amazing, I guess about this, this industry is people’s willingness to pay it forward to, you know, to give, whether it’s advice, whether it’s some time to take a phone call, like you say, rather than than just, you know, not from what I’ve seen that relationships are valued. You know, and I think that’s, I think, who knows, maybe it’s a generational thing, but I think it’s important to keep going, especially in the industry that we have, it just seems like that’s that’s a critical components. Yeah.

Scott Akin 20:01
And in this business there’s, there’s so many potential pitfalls, or problems that arise because there’s so many different levels of communication from an architect what an architect wants, and puts on a piece of paper. And by time, it goes through all the approval processes and all the issues and all the surveys and, you know, there’s bound to be challenges. And, you know, if you just ignore those challenges, you’re not going to my opinion not gonna be successful. But if you work together as a team and say, Hey, okay, I missed this, how can we fix it together? You know, and we’ll make it up on the next job, or we’ll do this, you know, differently, or, you know, but work together not, hey, this is your problem. You’re supposed to be the expert, you fix it. You know,

Matthew Allred 20:55
that’s a good point. Good point, I did a little bit of construction, like, you know, college timeframe during and before a little bit. And one of my old bosses used to say, the only problem is when you can’t fix and he was a cement contractor. And I used to just chuckle at that, because I know, he had had some doozies where, you know, cement goes out of the forums, and it dries and it’s like, man, break out the jackhammer, because we got to fix it. It’s, you know, but

Scott Akin 21:20
Right, right. Yeah. And there’s so many people that I talked to that I tell them exactly that. I don’t make elevator cabs and entrances anymore. You know, I just strict to my elevator skills. But you got questions, Coronel I’m an open book. And, to me, there’s a lot of power in that, you know, that power is like, you know, you know, just, you know, people call it they got questions, that’s great. Why not answer? Why hold that information? You know, maybe there’s a part of my life, you know, where it’s, you know, I don’t need to hold on to it. Maybe, you know, I don’t know, but Well,

Matthew Allred 22:01
I’m sure you see it come back. And you know, as you as you pay it forward, I mean, I’m sure you’ve got a long, long list of people you can call anytime you need something right, and maybe you have a question. And you’ve probably got a very long list of people that, hey, can you help me think through this? Or can you help me? You know, got something I don’t know what to do with? Because from what I understand, I don’t ever claim to be an technical expert, or in or knowledgeable about the actual workings of elevators. But I’ve heard from people who have a lot of experiences, there’s no way to know it all. So even the guy with 5060 however many years can still find a problem and have to ask.

Scott Akin 22:43
Right, right. Exactly. Exactly. So

Matthew Allred 22:47
how did you come up with the idea for Arca tread?

Scott Akin 22:53
So it’s not it’s not a new idea of putting in an overlay on an existing SIL. It’s been tried by several different people. Our company as well. But the adhesives in the past weren’t good enough. And the material was typically a quarter inch thick. Wow. Yeah, you know that we tried to overlay on top of the existing. So that in itself presented other problems that you either had to raise the doors, or buy new doors, you know, readjust the height of the cab on each floor. And so it was never really successful. Again, my love for manufacturing, and some of the processes that we were doing over the years. One called bat cutting or V grooving. I just saw the opportunity to incorporate number one the groove, which was always important. So the finish was always the same. And the fact that it’s very thin material. So in many cases, there’s no need to adjust the doors. We’re not impacting anything. And the adhesive that you know, I worked with three and closely. We came up with an adhesive that is phenomenal. Wow. Okay. Yeah, you know, so I was playing around after I left the company, I was playing around with some thoughts and ideas and I had some samples made up and literally went back in my barn and started making samples. And that’s kind of how and where the idea originated. And from there just expanded.

Matthew Allred 24:45
So you really didn’t have that idea when you when you walked out the door and sold and you were just kind of I guess trying to figure out what’s my next. What’s my next thing? I don’t know. Yeah, you know, I

Scott Akin 24:59
guess we were Playing around with putting plates on top of sales. You know, when I left the company and I had showed the time the President, you know, the plate, I said, Put the stainless steel plate and goes, right, it looks good. But it just didn’t look right. You know, the the idea of again, wrapping the shell was there. And I just got lucky, I guess, and was able to combine my love for manufacturing, and take that whole concept and develop what I call a seal skin to be able to wrap the entire cell. And the other thought was, we used to provide a fabricated stainless steel cylinder, which was eighth inch plate welded together with a bunch of stainless steel channels. And we sold a lot of those. And they were very expensive. But the architects liked them, because it was a crisp look, it was a sharp look square corners. And my thought was, if I could make a sell similar, but less expensive, I could probably sell a lot more, and replace some of the nickel silver that’s out there. So that was really the driver. And so I said if I could wrap aluminum, because aluminum, relatively inexpensive to wrap aluminum and put a finish over the aluminum that the architects would like. And it’s also cost effective. That’s how the base company started. Interesting. Okay, yeah. And in doing so, I looked at I said, Why can’t I do this in the field, you know, I have an aluminum extrusion, I put it over if I machine this out in the field. So again, I went to the bar and got a couple of nickel or old cells and started machining them. And when I could do this in the field, and that really opened the doors.

Matthew Allred 27:03
So So tell me a little bit more about that. It sounds like when you see in the field, you’re actually taking your machinery pulling up in front of somebody’s building, and actually kind of doing the retrofit right there rather than having to haul something back to, you know, your shop, essentially.

Scott Akin 27:19
Right, right. So historically, and again, we had 10 teams doing installs back in my day. And I would get get a phone call at night. At six o’clock. You know, we were replacing that entrance. So and, you know, we chip the floor. And typically at your lobbies, you got you know, stone, marble Hall High and terrazzo. And it’s usually been there for 20 years, you know, so that was always a headache. Yeah. So with the new system to your point, it’s really a retrofit in the field. And the benefits are, we bring our equipment and machine up the existing roof, we provide an overlay on top. You don’t have to remove the doors. So it’s a lot less cost of, you know, doesn’t cost a lot to have the doors removed. We don’t damage the floor. We actually put a socket in front of the wall side. And you can actually turn the car back over the moment we’re done, because he uses that quick. Wow. Right. So you can go from a traditional chopping up the sill, which sits in a better concrete, you know, an entrance sill typically sits in concrete. So you gotta go chop that out with a demo, hammer, remove it, clean it all out, set the new sill, put the concrete. That’s a two day job. These guys maybe get it done in a day, but you still got to let it cure. Whereas we’re done in four hours. You know, that’s, yeah, we look to get two openings a day. And it’s a cost savings. It’s less evasive, less noisy. It just, it’s a win win. It’s not for everything. It’s not the cure all. But it definitely has a place in the market. Yeah,

Matthew Allred 29:15
yeah. So So Pardon my ignorance, but you’re doing this on every single floor. Correct as it as it touches the floor touches the elevator,

Scott Akin 29:26
or sometimes, sometimes it’s just a lobby opening. Oh, just okay. Okay. Yeah. You know, depends. It’s not unusual for us to just go into lobbies, because lobbies are your high end finish.

Matthew Allred 29:38
Sure. True. I guess you may not have marble on every single floor or terrazzo. Like

Scott Akin 29:43
Well, typical is a hotel until it’s got a nice bronze silver bronze frame. You know, and all the other floors are going to be aluminum and a painted frame. Okay. Right. So they want to update their, their lobby and they’re going to wrap them bronze frames with stainless. What are we gonna do about the sill? And you watch this day forward, you’re gonna walk into an elevator and see stainless and look down and see a bronze ceiling.

Matthew Allred 30:11
I don’t think you right.

Scott Akin 30:16
Now I know why. Right? Nobody wants to. Nobody wants to deal with the seal anymore. Right? You know, number one, it’s it’s hard labor. And I always jokingly say this, but today’s mechanics go in an elevator shaft with a laptop. They don’t go in, you know, stacking rails and devil hammers and chopping out skills. They don’t they don’t want to do that.

Matthew Allred 30:43
Yeah, yeah. So is that the fact that you can kind of come in, knock it out in four hours? Would you say that’s one of your, I guess, strategic advantages, then that you you’ve got the ability to change it out without the risk of breaking the floor without the labor of like, say two days worth of I mean, sounds like a huge advantage.

Scott Akin 31:05
It is. It is. And, you know, at the labor rates for all these majors, which are tremendous labor rates. I mean, I’ve I’ve flown guys all around the country. I mean, my guys had been a while they’ve been to Alaska, they’ve been to Puerto Rico. Because even adding the cost of airfare and travel and hotel, it’s still more cost effective in many cases, then, to pay to have a mechanic chop it out and go at risk. Yeah.

Matthew Allred 31:38
So are your your men? I guess unionized mechanics, then? You don’t have to be? Okay.

Scott Akin 31:46
No, no, no, all our guys are non union. Well, I say I do license some people. Like I did until COVID. Hit us but I had, you know, Southern California had license people do the install, which were mechanic’s license mechanics. I had Northern California, data Florida. But they don’t have to be okay.

Matthew Allred 32:11
Because they’re not going into the confined spaces and the other. Right,

Scott Akin 32:15
you know, we we still want the elevator company to provide access into the shaft, position the car for us? And then let us do our thing. Right. So, yeah, it’s been, again, it’s for some people, it’s a nice result.

Matthew Allred 32:40
Certainly the demand out there, right, those who, who want it want it done, right, you know, they can, they’re willing to pay for it.

Scott Akin 32:48
And you know, what, in doing this process, what has come out of it is other situations where people wouldn’t, didn’t know how to handle it, for example, you know, replacing the lobby, and they put a brand new half inch tile floor down. And they usually I get the phone call when the the guy laying the tile gets up to the entrance. And it goes to a point where half inch above the so what are we going to do? You know, with my system, we’re actually able to build a solo a half inch. Oh, that’s cool, you know? Right. You know, so that solves another problem that, you know, there’s not a lot of it, but it solves that problem. I was just on personal I was on the phone before what we were supposed to get in, you know, they have a running clearance issue, which is the distance between the elevator sill the shaft. So entrance Hill and the car sill. Right, the maximum is supposed to be an inch and a quarter. So on one floor, they have a two inch gap. And on the floor below it or inch and a half. So again, we’ve run across these problems, just a couple of different ways to solve it. But with the overlay my overlay system, we can actually build the sill into the shaft.

Matthew Allred 34:14
Sure, they’ll make it wider lip. Yeah. Right,

Scott Akin 34:18
to reduce that gap. You know, so it’s been fun that way. That’s the exciting part for me is I really like for look forward to the challenges of solving a lot of these different issues. Yeah,

Matthew Allred 34:32
yeah. And sounds like you you get plenty of them. You get a lot of them coming your way that I mean, it sounds like everyone’s different right? So it’s not like you just do a standard approach to write it anyway. So yeah. So as we as we get close on our time here, got a couple couple questions. I always like to end with what what would you say is the most important thing you’ve learned and throughout your career.

Scott Akin 35:04
I go back to again, just making relationships, and just being honest with people and tell them the truth. I mean, to me, that is just the most powerful thing you can do with people, you know, they may not want to hear it may not like hearing it, but they’ll respect you for it. And I tell that to everybody that I mean, you know, if what you want to know is the best thing is that, because I tell this other forget back into baking business, no digress just for a second. But there was one guy that always stuck. You know, he didn’t use deodorant. Everybody would make fun of them behind his back. But the one guy walked up to him and said, you know, you’re gonna be embarrassed that I’m doing this, but I’m doing it because I respect you. And he said, and he gave me this thing to do to and said, use it. You know, and that’s difficult for a lot of people to do. A lot of people talk behind your back. Nobody wants to hear that they stink. But he’s got a lot of respect for him that walked up, because you should listen to people talking behind your back. And that’s always stuck with me. And, you know, I’m not saying run out and go tell everybody they stink. But, you know, sometimes you just got to speak the truth, even though

Matthew Allred 36:29
having the courage to tell the truth is is seems to be a lost art in some some places. So it’s

Scott Akin 36:36
a except your mistakes, which is kind of the same thing. Hey, I made a mistake. I’m sorry. Yeah. And most people be like, Okay, I get it, versus trying to bullshit your way out. Yeah,

Matthew Allred 36:50
exactly. Exactly. Well, the the last question I want to ask, and who knows, maybe this will be a little bit of a repeat, but what advice would you give to somebody who’s maybe new to the elevator industry, don’t even know what they’ve started into what to say to them.

Scott Akin 37:06
Don’t chase the money. Get into business that you love. And that’s really hit home for me, particularly with now that I started my own company. You know, this industry tends to be a more lucrative industry. But don’t get in it, and chase the money and look to make a ton of money. Get it because you love it. It’s, you know, the proverbial saying, you know, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. And there’s a lot of truth to that. I’m living, you know. So, that would be my advice. You know, don’t chase the money. Don’t get into business because of money. Get into it, because you enjoy it.

Matthew Allred 37:55
Right. That’s perfect. Scott, thank you for being with me today. I appreciate your time, your your wisdom, and I wish you the best as you continue to build your business and continue to build those relationships that you were telling us about. Well, thank

Scott Akin 38:09
you. Thanks for having me.

Matthew Allred 38:10
Thank you. Thank you for listening to the elevator careers podcast sponsored by the all red group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting. You can check us out online at elevator careers dotnet please subscribe and until next time, stay safe